The tunnel grew colder as the waters shifted around Jespar's skidding form. He staggered round another corner and heard the bestial roar of his adversary again – this time coming directly in front of him.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me!"

Without waiting, he turned tail and proceeded back the way he came. Still, he saw no light streaming from above. No cracks in the ceiling revealed an escape to the surface world, which, for once, he was missing.

There was nothing but him, the water, and the echo of the thing coming ever closer.

His paws carried him through water and caved in skulls, ribcages, and other limbs that he began to see emerge all around him like macabre conjurations of the creature coming after him. He couldn't stand to look at them anymore, and when he thought he'd put some distance between him and his pursuer, he slowed to a halt to catch his breath.

"This isn't good for my old heart."

He coughed up spittle and wiped his mouth on dry brickwork before he heard scraping claws on concrete nearby.

He spat out tainted sewage water he'd swallowed on his run and looked for a place to hide. It was better than running – this place was a damned labyrinth.

He turned around to inspect a nearby crevice and discovered that he'd ended up in the same spot he'd entered the place from. Venchenzo's wail rang out from above.

"Great," he said to no one. "Well, at least it can't get any worse."

Almost as expected, when he turned around again, he was face to face with his interloper – the colossal form of the lizard-man filled the entire chamber, his shoulders rising and falling with his rapid, animalistic breaths. He walked forwards on legs that seemed engineered to spring on prey on immediate command. Its wrinkled scales shone in the dark.

But it did not attack. Instead, its amber eyes studied Jespar while its mouth moved as though attempting speech.

One claw unclenched and reached toward him.

"You know," Jespar stuttered as he began to back up. "You wouldn't like dog meat. It's all squishy and tender and full of attitude."

This didn't seem to help matters at all. The beast's claw slowly reached towards him as it made to grab the base of his nose. He rose on his haunches and growled the low, menacing pitch afforded to him by the genetics of his race. There was only one thing to try.

His instincts kicked in, and as the claw drew closer, he sank his teeth into the open palm and bit down, feeling his fangs penetrate small slivers of the beast's scales before he pulled away and spit a few out. The thing gave a shrill yelp and stepped back, holding its nicked hand and stroking it furiously while its tail coiled around its body as though forming a protective shield.

Jespar paused and double-blinked. The thing seemed almost scared of him.

"Y-Yeah! That's right!" he yelped, jumping from side to side like he'd seen professional kickboxers do on the TV as a pup. "Can't take the heat? Then get outta the kitchen, boy! You wanna dance? Let's go, you and me. Right here. Come on. Let's go."

He looked into the face of the being and saw its slitted lips begin to quiver.

Some kind of emerald liquid began to ooze from its eyes. A defense mechanism, maybe?

He wasn't waiting to find out. Something in that look sent his mind racing through images of the untold horrors about to be inflicted on him if he stayed. Whatever had just happened, at least he'd momentarily disabled the beast. So, he took his chance: he shot through its shaking legs and just managed to jump over its tail, which he was sure had shifted to swipe him out of the way. He bolted down the same narrow passage he'd first entered the sewers through and panted with fury at being made to traverse this labyrinth again.

The reptile, meanwhile, did not give chase. It merely looked after his skittering form to its hand, oozing a small emerald stain where the dog's teeth had managed to cut through its soft palm. It wiped its eyes and scratched its head, greatly puzzled.

Pestilential water filled with the bile of long-dead souls slapped Jespar in his face as he forged toward some kind of salvation. He knew he'd have to find some way out of the water. He was practically in the lizard's natural habitat. That's how it had found him so quickly.

His mind started racing with him, leading him down path after path of this squalid maze that he could swear he'd been down already. His thought process was as ragged and disjointed as the hairs that stood up all over his body by this point.

Scan the ceiling. No light. Not even a crack. Fuck.

Ok.

Round another corner; come on.

Fucking spirits of The Deadlands, give me something. That's what you'd say, right, Chief? Only they'd listen to you.

He heard only the desperate scrabbling of his paws underneath him and the raspy, ragged breath he coughed out into the stale air of this dungeon.

This is how it's gonna end? Fucking underground? Again?

Nah. Screw that. It ain't happening. Maybe you could fight the thing off? That's what she would do.

Another ear-splitting roar reverberated off the walls of the hollow prison around him and told him that he had no choice but to run faster.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Sorry Chief, but I ain't you. This is all I know how to do.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks. He'd surprised even himself with that one.

"Damn. Heavy."

He was at another junction and spared a look behind to find his interloper. He wasn't around. Yet.

He scanned the area and found what may be his salvation: a small fissure in the nearby brickwork that seemed like it had been filled in with dirt and covered with mold. It was his only chance; this way, he could be spared the self-imposed embarrassment of running.

Hiding was clever, not cowardly. That's what he'd tell his autobiographer.

He began scratching away at the mud and felt it come loose. He threw himself forcefully into the operation, piercing each section of the plugged wall with his claws and dislodging another great chunk to be tossed into the water below. As another part gave way, he beheld the impossible: there, yes! There was light being cast somewhere passed this point. He could just make it out from the small hole he had made. He felt relatively proud of himself until the bestial roar echoed through his ears again.

He started using his mouth, his fangs glinting in the sewer's shadowed environment – snarling maw chewing through muck and mucus that must have seeped into the wall over time. More light began to shine through as though mocking him, the world of the surface teasing him all over again, letting him know that his salvation that was so close was soon to be taken from him. But he ignored these thoughts. Instead, he kept on. He'd get out. He had to.

When the last load-bearing mud flap caved in, he turned and saw those amber eyes, narrowed, staring right at him from the bottom of the tunnel.

He squeezed into the wall without hesitation and kept pressing till he felt his brain was at bursting point. He felt the movement of air behind him. Something sharp nicked his back.

And then he was through.

He checked his posterior as best he could before any declaration of victory. He spun around several times, chasing his tail to get a good look for any signs of lacerations, but, thankfully, found nothing. The beast's hand must have been grasping for him and come up just short. For now, he was alone again.

"Yay," he said, again, to no one.

He sniffed around and found that he had entered a circular chamber with what looked like a stone dias at its center, small waterfalls of putrid slime spewing from four points surrounding the oval. Sunlight spilled down upon the dias from above, and he followed the beam of light playing in the air before him to see that it emanated from a slotted grate above. A small rusted ladder ran from its side to the bottom of the chamber.

Jackpot.

He made to walk and instead collapsed under his weight. Exhaustion was kicking in - his physical limitation burying him in his finest hour. Typical.

He felt nothing more than the desire to let his lids close as he lay there on the floor, so close to freedom. At this point, hunger, thirst, and overpowering fatigue mixed with his internalized anxiety forced him into a battle with his own thoughts.

If you lie here, you old moron, that thing's gonna find you, one part of him said - the logical part.

"I know," he whispered.

It finds you, and then it's all over. No more Chief. No Callisto for you. Potentially, no more anything

"Yeah."

You're done.

"Agreed."

He felt the voice inside him huff like he did when he didn't quite buy something.

Oh, it sneered. Even though he couldn't see it, he knew there was this obnoxious, smug little version of himself sniggering away at him inside.

So, that's what you want?

He just smirked back. Somewhere in the real world, he heard the lizard's scream reach his ears again.

I agree: You're a piece of shit, Jespar, his inner imp kept saying. And this world would be better off without you. But this ain't about you anymore.

Amidst more screams, he shook his head. He felt his legs buckling under the burden of his body and mind. This is it. This should be it.

"I'm alone," he said, though his voice was a hoarse imitation of the Jespar that anyone on earth had ever heard. "I'm gonna be alone again."

He heard something bashing the walls behind him. Something big. And angry.

Man, you really are a dumb sack a" shit. You've never been alone. You had Nicole. And now you've got The Chief.

"She's not Nicole," he spat back. "She never will be."

The voice's response was reproachful yet soothing, like a child helping a friend climb to the top of a tree it had fallen from many times until it had finally found success.

Jespar, she doesn't have to be.

He looked up to see the ladder leading to the grate and behind him to see the stone walls buckling under the tremendous force of the beast that threw itself at them from the other side.

So what'll it be? The voice asked him. You either die alone down here or take your chances up there.

He forced himself to stand, swearing at the effort every grunt of force coaxed from him.

"Ok, but not for me," he said, scrabbling up the ladder's rusted rungs. "For her."

Who?

"You know who."

Oh, I sure as hell do, Jespar. But you don't.

He stopped for a second as this thought raced through him. And only then did he realize he was starting to slip.

"Shit! Fuck me, I'm annoying!"

The wall behind him finally gave way, and a swiping arm emerged out of the dark of the sewer chamber and brought its reptilian body into the light.

He didn't look down, but he could feel it watching him. He could feel it as it grabbed hold of the ladder's foundation and shook it as he furiously clung to each new piece of debased metal and tried to hold on.

The grate was right in front of him; all he had to do was reach out with his front paw.

Then he felt a movement like the ground shifting away beneath him. He felt himself falling before he even realized that the ladder had come apart, and with a scream that seemed to echo for eternity, he landed on the stone dias with a wet thud.

He scrabbled on the ground and looked up into the predatory eyes of the hunter that had stalked him with absolute precision. He almost respected it. Here he was, in this isolated little chamber, totally at its mercy. For all he knew, this was its lair. It had harried him successfully through the tunnels, and now his prey was weak and tired. His for the taking.

"All right," Jespar said as the thing reached towards him with its glinting, serrated claws. "Fine. Come on then, you bastard. I'm gonna leave a sour taste in your mouth that you'll never manage to wash away."

The creature withdrew and rose to its full height, its hand moving behind its back. Probably to reveal some kind of horrible weapon. Maybe a sacrificial blade that it used before it cut its prize meat.

Jespar closed his eyes. He tried not to shake.

And he opened them again when he felt something ice cold touch his nose.

At first, he simply didn't believe it and tried blinking the vision away. But no, it was still there. This was real.

The creature held a bottle of spring water in its hand.

Jespar simply looked from it to the creature and back, vaguely remembering that this was the treasure he'd wanted from Venchenzo. He probably could have thought of something to say. But the words just wouldn't come.

The creature dropped its backpack on the stone dias that Jespar only now noticed it was holding in its other hand. Lo and behold: there was the water. All of it. The whole shebang.

As he examined the hand closer, he saw what had formed the strange nooks in the being's fist – they weren't natural perforations but shards of glass. And even a dog like him could put two and two together.

"From Venchenzo?" was all he said.

The creature double-blinked with eyes that now seemed much more playful than Jespar had noticed before in the dark. There was a kind of innocence about them.

It opened its mouth and row upon row of slitted teeth to utter one word:

"Ass-hole."

It wasn't clear or pretty, but still, Jespar could make out the phrase. It was as though this creature were some charmed chameleon learning to speak for the first time. This might even be its first word. And he could tell what it was trying to do: mimic the exact tone of condemnation Jespar had used when he spat that very same word (with a touch more eloquence) at the great Venchenzo.

Usually, this would make Jespar laugh. But here, he could do nothing but nod and stare.

"You - uh - got that right," he said, still wary and on the verge of total collapse. "So is this for me or..?"

The creature merely pushed the bottle further into his chubby face, and he squinted.

"Alright, alright!" he wailed. As weird as this was, he was parched enough to take the prize. He unscrewed the top with his front teeth and gulped back the liquid with gusto, feeling the ice-cold, crystalline water flow through his throat and cleanse his withered insides. It felt like a collective sigh of relief from a forest deprived of rainfall for years. This was the good stuff.

The being watched him with its curious face, barely blinking, still watching him like he was going to be its next meal. Jespar eyed it suspiciously as he put the bottle down and cocked his head to one side.

The creature copied the movement exactly, smiling.

"Hey buddy," Jespar said. "That's my thing, dig? You ain't no dog."

The being hissed with glee, its teeth shining through its slitted mouth as what must pass for its laughter escaped from its scale-encrusted throat.

"So, uh, thanks, I guess," Jespar said, more than a little creeped out. "You got a name, big guy?"

The lizard hissed again.

"Ass-hole," it said.

"Riiiiight. Ok," Jespar replied, then was interrupted by a sudden outburst.

"Ass-hole!" The creature yelled. "Ass-hole!"

"Alright, alright!" Jespar barked back. "Yeah. Ass-hole. Asshole. Swearing's fun, huh?"

Again the childlike giggle escaped from the monster's mouth and infected Jespar with its innocence. There was definitely something wrong with this picture.

"Well," he finally said. "Mr. Asshole, it's been – eh – educational. But I gotta go."

He felt the arm of the lizardman shoot out from behind him just as Jespar made to leave. He realized as he turned around what the beast was doing – it was offering him its backpack full of water.

"Oh, please, mate, I can't. Seriously, don't you need some of –"

He suddenly changed his mind at the growl from the being's throat.

"Alright!" he cried, allowing the beast to strap the bag to his back. Now he had even more weight to carry. But at least he bore the promised treasure he had always wanted to bring back.

See? The tiny voice echoed in his mind. You ain't alone, big guy.

He looked up at the lizard and was about to thank him again, but this time he noted that there was something he had produced from the backpack that he held in front of him, pointing to it, moving it closer to Jespar as though this was something important he had to see.

He squinted and saw that the object was a picture set within a surprisingly well-kept picture frame. The glass had been broken long ago, and in parts, you could see the rips and creases that time and travel had made on the photograph there, but it wasn't hard to work out its contents.

He looked at that photograph for quite some time, then from the picture to the creature, and finally, down at his front paws.

"Ah," he said with a heavy sigh. "I get it."

He felt the creature's hand reach for his dejected face in an attempt not to harm – but to stroke. He knew how humans approached his kind like this. He knew what this creature had once been.

"No," he said, turning away from the hand. "Sorry, but no. This ain't like you think it is."

"Ass-hole?" the creature asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I suppose I am."

They sat across from each other for some time after that - The lizardman with its legs crossed, patient, just watching Jespar and his downcast gaze.

"You know," Jespar finally said, feeling again that same weight of responsibility bearing on him. "If it's any consolation, if you can even understand me, no one's gonna go through what you did ever again. I'm here to make sure of that."

The creature just blinked at him, nodding. Perhaps not understanding, but at least grasping the gravity with which the dog made its proclamation.

"But to do that," Jespar continued. "I gotta get outta this place. I gotta get up there and back to the girl I'm here with. She's not been looking so good, and I gotta take care of her. I know that sounds weird, but it's just like a feeling you get, y'know? Maybe you don't know, but anyway, I can't stay here. I gotta – hey!"

The lizard had lifted him without warning and proceeded to scale the walls of the chamber with the dexterity and care of a practiced spelunker – knowing exactly where the weak spots of the stonework were that its claws could insert themselves into and propel it and its charge further. Jespar had barely registered what was happening as it threw them further up the shaft and finally gripped what remained of the broken ladder. It opened the hatch leading to the outside world and lobbed a blinded Jespar through like a tiny ball of fluff.

He landed on the sand-coated sidewalk next to the apartment block and, once again, could scarcely believe that he had survived yet another near-death ordeal.

He spared a look back at the creature, still hanging from the final rung of the ladder but shying away from the sunlight of the afternoon.

"Don't much like the sun, huh?" Jespar asked. "Well, then, this is goodbye."

The creature mewled for a moment, and once again, Jespar could see the spots of emerald liquid that were dripping from its amber eyes.

"Ass-hole," it sniffled and gave him a wave.

"Yeah," he replied, turning his back. "Thanks for the stuff."

As he walked off, he heard that tiny whispering in the back of his mind give a disapproving tut like a schoolteacher reprimanding a wayward pupil.

Well, that was harsh.

"Shut up," he said aloud and instead focused his mind on taking a nice long piss on Venchenzo's battered body before heading upstairs to The Chief.

"End of the day," he whispered. "I'm better off alone."

...

He couldn't wait to see Rain-Born's face when he brought his surprises upstairs. He practically bounded through the door and stood to attention, head held high.

"Witness me!" he roared in triumph. "I bring riches beyond your wildest imaginings, great hunter!"

But his audience wasn't exactly captive. She was staring outside with great focus, her knotted eyebrows betraying her worry. Her perspiration-streaked brow told him she had been occupied herself but still had waited for his return.

He shuffled up to her, producing the bag full of water like bestowing tribute to a Queen. Only then did she seem to snap awake.

"Welcome back," she said with a smile. "I see you have been busy."

Jespar chuckled as he nosed a bottle her way.

"Honey," he said. "You don't know the half of it. Someday I'll regale you with all the tales of my heroism."

She gave a wry laugh as she accepted the bottled water from him.

"I hope the sky above our campfires is filled with songs of your glory when I return to my people, Jespar," she said. "But what is it you have found?"

"Drink it," he winked, a sly smile plastered across his face.

He watched her as she did so, chuckling as her eyes bulged and she tilted her head back further to taste the rich, sparkling sensation the water bestowed on her.

"Jespar!" she breathed as she drew away from the bottle. "I have not tasted water this fresh in my whole life. You found this in the depths of this tomb?"

He didn't feel like contradicting her. In fact, the primal desire for praise in him temporarily took over, and he lay on his back to accept a complimentary scratch on his belly.

"Feel free to praise me more," he purred. "But go easy on the stash. There's enough there to get you back home."

"I'm forever grateful," she replied, stroking the back of his good ear. "I will make sure to leave some for you, too. We'll both need our strength to make it back to the Hanakh."

His head jerked up. "Eh?"

"I have decided it is the least I can do, Jespar," she said with satisfaction. "You who have seen me through the darkness of this journey and helped guide me to this place I never dared even dream of. If you will not specify a boon I can grant you, then I will submit one: I will show you my home, and you may stay as long as you wish."

At first, he didn't say anything. He couldn't.

"Chief, I-"

"It is the only gift I can truly offer," she continued, staring out into the hovering sun of mid-afternoon. "We Hanakh hunt in pairs. Usually, it is bondsmen who will track prey together. The feeling of a Canyon Stalker is a traditional way to declare love for another. But companions who begin as strangers are different. We have a tenant: ""A hunter who guides my spirit as I walk the dreaded winds of the wastes shall be my keeper. I shall take their spirit within my own, and so they shall become a part of me.""

Jespar just listened, his twitching ears a rare sight for the newly humbled Rain-Born. For a moment, the wise-cracking canine comedian in him gave way to a new identity: the student of Tribal ways. Something about this idea she came out with had stuck with him in a way even he, so proud of his cunning linguistic prowess, could not explain.

"Jespar," she continued, letting the thinning midday breeze play upon her warm cheeks. "I have taken part of your spirit within my own. It has shown me that I am more than I once was. It has shown me that there are choices I must reflect on. You, a stranger, have shown me more compassion in my time of need than even my own mother ever had the chance to. It is a strange thing - to know that there are those such as you in this world that live and breathe the same air as I do. This lesson is valuable, and I can only thank you by showing you what I value most: my home and my people. I will show you who we are, and maybe then you will take some of our spirit with you."

"Heh," he scoffed, resuming his upright stance beside her. "Didn't think I'd ever hear that from a Tribal."

She looked at him gravely, almost returning to her self. "This gift you have given me I will thank you for, Jespar. But first, I must say: fuck you."

He almost fell from the open chasm in the apartment's window. He looked at her like she'd stabbed a litter of puppies right in front of him.

"Miss Rain-Born!" he shrieked, emphasizing every syllable in his most hyperbolic tone.

"We have another saying," she grinned mischievously. 'An open mind is like a camp without guard or defense.' So, fuck you, Jespar. For making me think."

His wry laughter mingled with her own, and their joy echoed through the vacant halls of the abandoned apartment building like the songs and merry cries of the children that had once run through these long-forgotten corridors. Both their laughs issued from throats were more satiated than in months. Venchenzo's hoard, Jespar thought, had definitely been put to good use.

"I have been a terrible influence on you," Jespar said, slowly regaining his composure. "But hey, good for you. You're a stand-up gal."

He was once again baffled by his inadequacy in a moment like this, which somehow seemed important. He always failed when it came to big moments like these, feeling the eyes of another not on his body but on – he didn't know what – his soul? Some other mystic bullshit?

Either way, she was looking at him, expecting something else. But he wouldn't meet her eyes at this moment.

Now wasn't the time. Not yet.

He looked towards the spire that towered atop the city, the sun hiding behind its great glass peak – the thin antennae like a celestial iris framed in the eye of the sun"s shadow, casting its glowering penumbra over the whole dead forest of iron and shattered memories. Over him, too. That eye was judging him and his companion as they crept towards it like mindless ants, heeding the call of the treasure buried deep within its steel-encased bosom.

No, Chief. Now's not the time, he thought as he met its gaze. But soon.

He turned his attention to the road ahead of them.

"Seen anything interesting?" he asked her.

"Nothing good," she grimaced. "But then, nothing worth having ever comes easy."

"That another Hanakh saying?"

She smirked. "No. One of my own."

He watched her shuffle off down the broken stairway to the building's main exit. He'd probably have a chance to show her the Great Venchenzo in his full, dead glory once they got there and gave another wry chuckle at the prospect of seeing the look on her face.

But he also thought upon her offer. She was going to take him with her. She was so sure she'd find what she was looking for and keep both him and her alive to boot. Here she was, fucked shoulder, probably suffering from heatstroke, in a world totally alien to her, and she was offering him a place at her table like he was the one who was afraid.

Then again, you are, you big moron, he thought. You're afraid you'll end up like this – wandering around a dead world alone forever.

"Coming, Jespar? She called out to him from the doorway.

"Right behind you," he answered. But as he followed her, he cocked his head and sucked in his teeth like an elder pondering one of the great questions of life. For him, the question was clear:

Jespar, old boy, you're being offered a chance to start again on a silver platter here. Why aren't you taking it?

Maybe he could do it. Perhaps he could fit in with them, hell, even be worshipped as some kinda Tribal God. Now that would be something. They'd feed him ripened grapes and chicken leg by a roaring fire while he told them how he guarded the Gates of the Underworld.

But even in his wildest fantasies, that wasn't really what he wanted. Truthfully, what he needed was something so much simpler. So basic, it was almost criminal.

Callisto gave him a human mind, but it didn't make him any less dog.

"I don't need a whole tribe to make me happy, Chief," he mumbled almost inaudibly. "Your spirit would be more than enough."

"What was that, Jespar?" she asked at the bottom of the stairwell.

"Nothing," he said, shaking dust and excess bonemeal trapped in his coat. "Lead on."